Galaxy Science Fiction
Galaxy Science Fiction was an American digest-size science fiction magazine, published in Boston from 1950 to 1980.[1] It was founded by a French-Italian company, World Editions, which was looking to break into the American market. World Editions hired as editor H. L. Gold, who rapidly made Galaxy the leading science fiction magazine of its time, focusing on stories about social issues rather than technology.
For the 19th-century periodical, see The Galaxy (magazine).
Gold published many notable stories during his tenure, including Ray Bradbury's "The Fireman", later expanded as Fahrenheit 451; Robert A. Heinlein's The Puppet Masters; and Alfred Bester's The Demolished Man. In 1952, the magazine was acquired by Robert Guinn, its printer. By the late 1950s, Frederik Pohl was helping Gold with most aspects of the magazine's production. When Gold's health worsened, Pohl took over as editor, starting officially at the end of 1961, though he had been doing the majority of the production work for some time.
Under Pohl Galaxy had continued success, regularly publishing fiction by writers such as Cordwainer Smith, Jack Vance, Harlan Ellison, and Robert Silverberg. Pohl never won the annual Hugo Award for his stewardship of Galaxy, winning three Hugos instead for its sister magazine, If. In 1969 Guinn sold Galaxy to Universal Publishing and Distribution Corporation (UPD) and Pohl resigned, to be replaced by Ejler Jakobsson. Under Jakobsson the magazine declined in quality. It recovered under James Baen, who took over in mid-1974, but when he left at the end of 1977 the deterioration resumed, and there were financial problems—writers were not paid on time and the schedule became erratic. By the end of the 1970s, the gaps between issues were lengthening, and the title was finally sold to Galileo publisher Vincent McCaffrey, who brought out only a single issue in 1980. A brief revival as a semi-professional magazine followed in 1994, edited by H. L. Gold's son, E. J. Gold; this lasted for eight bimonthly issues.
At its peak, Galaxy greatly influenced the science fiction genre. It was regarded as one of the leading science fiction magazines almost from the start, and its influence did not wane until Pohl's departure in 1969. Gold brought a "sophisticated intellectual subtlety" to magazine science fiction according to Pohl, who added that "after Galaxy it was impossible to go on being naive."[2] SF historian David Kyle agreed, commenting that "of all the editors in and out of the post-war scene, the most influential beyond any doubt was H. L. Gold".[3] Kyle suggested that the new direction Gold set "inevitably" led to the experimental New Wave, the defining science fiction literary movement of the 1960s.
Contents and reception[edit]
Early years[edit]
Gold intended Galaxy to publish stories of sufficient literary quality to attract readers of the slick magazines, as well as those who came to Galaxy already familiar with genre science fiction.[40] His editorial policy was broader than that of John W. Campbell, the editor of the leading magazine in the field, Astounding Science Fiction: Gold was interested in sociology, psychology, and other "soft" sciences, and was also willing to publish humorous and satirical stories.[41] Gold managed to persuade the publisher to let him offer three to four cents a word, which exceeded the highest rates paid in the field at that time.[41][notes 6] In addition to the high rates, Galaxy was an attractive market for writers because Gold bought only first magazine rights, unlike the other leading magazines.[13] Galaxy was quickly established as one of the three leading science fiction magazines, along with Campbell's Astounding and The Magazine of Fantasy and Science Fiction (usually abbreviated to F&SF).[8] Campbell had been enormously influential over the previous decade, but the appearance of Galaxy and F&SF, launched just a year before, marked the end of his dominance of the genre.[44]
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Related publications[edit]
Two series of companion novels were issued by the publishers. The first series, Galaxy Science Fiction Novels, began in 1950 with Eric Frank Russell's Sinister Barrier; seven titles were released by World Editions, and a further twenty-eight by Guinn's Galaxy Publishing Corporation. The books were initially in digest format but this was changed to a standard paperback format for the last four titles. In 1959 the line was sold to Beacon Books, which produced another 11 volumes. Beacon specialized in softcore pornography, and changed the titles of most of the books they published to be more suggestive. The last title, Sin in Space (originally Outpost Mars), by Cyril Judd (a pseudonym for Cyril Kornbluth and Judith Merril) appeared in 1961. Two years later a second series, Galaxy Magabooks, appeared; each of these consisted of two short novels, both by the same author, published in a single volume. Only three were released; the last, And My Fear Is Great/Baby Is Three by Theodore Sturgeon, appeared in 1964.[114][notes 16]
Publication details[edit]
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